Student Teams & Projects
There are a number of opportunities for students to get hands-on experience while enrolled as a student at Aerospace Engineering, including being part of a student team or participating in an undergraduate research project.
Wilson Student Team Project Center
The University of Michigan College of Engineering supports a wide array of student project teams. The Wilson Student Team Project Center occupies a facility adjacent to the FXB building to support a diverse set of student team projects. Students gain experience with all phases of the design, build, test project cycle.
Read a description of some student project teams below, or see a complete list of Wilson Student Team Project teams.
Meaningful Places: The Wilson Center
Aircraft
MAAV: Michigan Autonomous Aerial Vehicles
The Michigan Autonomous Aerial Vehicles (MAAV) team is a student competition team at the University of Michigan founded in September 2009. The goal of the team is to enter and win the 2011 International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC). The team consists of students ranging from freshman to graduate students with a few Ph.D. candidate advisors. The team is a highly interdisciplinary team with students from Aerospace Engineering, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and the Business School. The team is divided into sub-teams to delegate tasks vital to the project. These sub-teams include: Electrical Hardware, Navigation, Structures, Controls and Simulation, Imaging, Testing and Business. Each of the members on the team is involved in at least two of the sub-teams.
At the end of the first year, MAAV successfully built two quadrotor vehicles capable of manual flight. Many of the autonomous aspects of the project made significant progress, but have not been implemented on the vehicle.
Faculty Advisors: Pete Washabaugh | Ella Atkins | Ed Olson (Computer Science & Engineering)
M-Fly SAE Aero Design Team
M-Fly competed in the 2016 SAE Aero Design East competition March 11-13, 2016 in Fort Worth, Texas. The team completed in both the Regular and Advanced class categories of the competition. This is the first year the team competed in the Advanced class competition and it also won the oral design presentation and finished 5th overall out of 19 teams! The Regular class aircraft finished 8th overall out of 35 teams beating previous year’s records!
M-Fly is a Society of Automotive Engineers Aero Design team, dedicated to promoting opportunities for students to practice applying their knowledge to projects outside the classroom.
Faculty Advisor: Carlos Cesnik
The Aero Design® Competition challenges engineering students to conceive, design, fabricate and test a radio controlled aircraft that can take off and land while carrying the maximum cargo. This gives students the opportunity to apply the knowledge learned in the classroom on a practical problem.
—SAE Aero Design
M-Jet: Michigan Jet Engine Team
The purpose of this group is to provide University of Michigan Students with a hands-on jet engine experience and help them better understand the inner workings of a turbine engine. Our organizations sponsors jet engine experiments. These experiments are put together by three subcommittees which meet weekly to work on the project. Initial experiments will be basic engine runs and in the future we will test the engine performance with different fuels and in varying altitudes.
Faculty Advisor: Tim Smith
Multidisciplinary
M-SAAVE: Michigan – Sustainability Applications for Aerospace Vehicle Engineering
Michigan – Sustainability Applications for Aerospace Vehicle Engineering (M-SAAVE) is a multidisciplinary student project team that is committed to driving social and environmental progress via deliberate application of aerospace technologies. Our objective is to design, build, test, and fly an aircraft each academic year, aligned with the United Nations SDGs and a partner organization’s core mission. For the 2021-2022 school year, we are developing an unpiloted aerial vehicle that can be utilized by our partner Air Serv International, one of the world’s leading aviation service providers for humanitarian missions.
Undergraduate and graduate students of all majors are welcome to join!
Social Media: Instagram | Twitter
Faculty Advisor: George Halow
MSS: Michigan SOLAR SEA
Michigan Solar Sea (MSS) designs, builds, and races a manned electric boat to compete in the Promoting Electronic Propulsion competition (PEP) hosted by the American Society of Naval Engineers. Our team offers students the unique opportunity to work on a full-scale boat project. Some challenges we face include designing and fabricating hydrofoils (underwater wings), a hull and a propulsion system for efficiency and high-speed performance. Everyone is welcome to our team regardless of background, experience, or area of expertise. There is a place for everyone at MSS!
Faculty Advisor: Krzysztof Fidkowski
Michigan Solar Sea team member modeling a boat on the computer. 
Michigan Solar Sea team 
Michigan Solar Sea team members working on a boat.
MVFT: Michigan Vertical Flight Technology
Michigan Vertical Flight Technology (MVFT) was founded in February 2018 to provide students with the opportunity to gain first-hand experience with Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) technologies. During the 2020-2021 academic year, the team earned first place in the Vertical Flight Society’s Inaugural Design-Build-Vertical Flight (DBVF) Competition and plans to continue competing in VFS’s annual completion. This means the team completes the design-build-test-compete cycle of a new eVTOL aircraft each academic year so that new members are able to participate in each stage of creating the final craft.
Undergraduate and graduate students of all majors are welcome to join!
Social Media: Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn
Faculty Advisor: Carlos Cesnik
Space
MASA: Michigan Aeronautical Science Association
The Michigan Aeronautical Science Association is a student organization created specifically to design and fabricate rockets. MASA focuses in projects involving new hybrid propulsion technologies and composite structures. These projects culminate in rocket launches, which have been conducted since 2004. MASA’s rockets are technologically demonstrative and more than able to launch payloads such as GPS telemetry devices, cameras and Cansat satellite simulators.
The Michigan eXploration Lab
The Michigan Exploration Laboratory (MXL) works to achieve a comprehensive blend of education, research, and entrepreneurship within the University of Michigan College of Engineering. The collaborative MXL environment has already yielded flight-proven achievements in high altitude ballooning and small satellite design, with even more innovations resulting from the analysis of completed missions.
Based in the department of aerospace engineering, MXL brings together students from across a multitude of academic engineering disciplines in order to create a finely tuned and well-balanced engineering design and development team. By working with such a diversely populated team on real missions, students are afforded the opportunity to cultivate their own strengths and interests while learning key teambuilding and communication skills.
RECENT STUDENT TEAMS NEWS
Michigan Vertical Flight Technology, a student team centered around building VTOL aircraft, took first place in the Vertical Flight Society’s first annual Design-Build-Vertical Flight Competition.
U-M Aerospace student project team MACH won first place in the International American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Design, Build, and Fly Competition in the design report phase.
Michigan Aerospace senior Kara Vanderwest has been honored by the Women in Aeronautics and Astronautics (WAA) with the WAA Champion Award
Catherine Philpott Shares How the Michigan Aerospace Women in Aeronautics and Astronautics (WAA) Student Organization Impacted Her Aerospace Journey
As Prince Kuevor wraps up his 10 years as a student at U-M, he reflects on the challenges he overcame as a Black student in Aerospace and the contributions he’s made to better inclusion in the community for the students who come after him.
Under the direction of Department Chair Dr. Tony Waas, a group of Michigan Aerospace undergraduates are developing a prototype vertical take-off and landing aircraft to transport medical supplies to remote communities in Ghana.
Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Michigan Aeronautical Science Association is continuing to break expectations of a collegiate rocket team as they work toward reaching space with their new rocket, the Tangerine Space Machine.
Michigan Aerospace congratulates Kaelan Oldani, who received the prestigious College of Engineering Hugh G. Rummler Prize
The Michigan Aero Outreach Champions award recognizes exceptional achievement in spreading awareness of Aerospace Engineering with people and communities outside the department. Recipients have demonstrated a passion for such outreach and conducted projects with a wide impact in the communities in which they take place. Outreach efforts have additionally been conducted with a consideration of […]
Congratulations to Women in Aeronautics and Astronautics for receiving the Martin Luther King Spirit Award for exemplifying the leadership and vision of Dr. King through their commitment to social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion!
